


Dust

by jack_inaboxx



Series: crack in the glass [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: How Do I Tag, Short work, Undefined - Freeform, which is what i use for everything that isn't a solid part of my novels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:09:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jack_inaboxx/pseuds/jack_inaboxx
Summary: He knows that if he looked back, he would see faces in the dust.He doesn't look back.
Series: crack in the glass [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774129





	Dust

_Marching away from the stream  
This tree is will die without leaves  
Marching away from the stream  
This tree it will die without leaves  
This tree it will die  
_

_This tree, it will die_

—| |—

The only sounds in this desert are the gentle thuds of Tasha’s hooves hitting the dusty ground, kicking up a dust trail behind them a mile high. 

Somehow, he knows that if he looked back, there would be faces in the dust, screaming out at the world. 

He doesn’t look back. 

He keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the horizon, and he urges Tasha into a gallop, fleeing from himself. They tear across the desert sand, almost desperately, a certain poetic grace to how they move together, almost flying across the ground. 

What do you do, when the worst thing you can face is yourself? How do you keep living, surviving, feeling?

His mind is no longer sane, he thinks, but somehow that’s okay. 

Sanity is imaginary. Everyone’s insane, deep in the dark places of their minds. 

And so he runs, from himself maybe but something else too, and whether or not it’s really there is irrelevant. 

So they run, together, and the romantic corner of his mind heart that’s been dying ever since his love did manages one last turn of phrase- 

_If all you are running from is yourself, what are you afraid of?_

And with that, his heart grows cold, and he pulls Tasha to a stop, rougher than he would have before. 

But then, he is a different person now, if he is still a person at all. 

Tasha rears, and he turns her back the way they came, faces the dust trail and the screaming faces and the _thing_. 

He knows the _thing_ is only him now. 

He is not afraid. 

_(His heart has died, and that was all that was keeping him from becoming what everyone thought he was- a creature of the trail, something wild and strange and a little other than human.)_

He is not afraid. 

He draws his revolver, makes one shot, clean and true-

—| |—

_And we all still die  
Yeah we all still die  
What will you leave behind?_

_Oh we all  
Still _

_Die_

**Author's Note:**

> One of the first stories I ever posted to be seen by the world, I think it deserves to be the first here, too.


End file.
